RAPAPORT... De Beers is shutting its diamond-recycling division, as digital advancements in the sector have lessened the need for its services. The International Institute of Diamond Valuation (IIDV) wasset up in 2016 to repurchase and recycle diamond jewelry that consumers no longerwanted. De Beers began the operation after noting the difficulty consumersfaced in trying to sell their jewelry at a...Read More

Australia's Lucapa Diamond (ASX:LOM) said Thursday it had signed funding and refinancing arrangements that will allow it to reduce debt related to developing its recently commissioned Mothae mine in Lesotho, South Africa.The diamond producer has inked deals with New Azilian and Equigold, following the delivery and de-risking of Mothae, which began commercial production in December."These new r...Read More

An Angolan delegation led by President Joao Lourenco has arrived in Moscow for a four-day visit. The Russian publication Kommersant wrote that "although this is the Angolan leader's first visit to Russia in this capacity, he does have first-hand knowledge about the Russian capital, since he studied at the Military-Political Academy here in 1978-1982. While attending the Russia-Angola business foru...Read More

RAPAPORT... Lucapa Diamond Company hassigned a new refinancing agreement that will allow it to reduce its debts and further develop its Mothae mine in Lesotho. New Azilian will give theminer a one-year loan of $7 million, some of which it will put toward repayinga loan to Equigold ahead of schedule. That loan was taken out in 2017. Lucapa will also use thefunds from New Azilian as working ca...Read More

RAPAPORT... Sotheby's failed to find a buyer for three blue diamonds at its Hong Kong auction Tuesday. A cut-cornered, rectangular step-cut, fancy-vivid blue, 3.32-carat diamondring, valued at $5.9 million to $7.6million, was left unsold. The center stone was set between two trilliant-cut diamonds.Two cut-cornered, rectangular, modified brilliant-cut stones also failed to attract a buyer at t...Read More

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified mining company Anglo American is implementing new techniques that give the company far more control over its tailings dams, which have been thrown into the spotlight after the tragic loss of life at Brumadinho, in Brazil, where an iron-ore tailings dam collapsed at Vale’s Corrego do Feijao mine earlier this year killing hundreds of people....Read More

In her address to the 6th Forum of the Africa-Belgium Business Week, held in the Belgian town of Genval, Marie-Chantal Kaninda, Executive Director of World Diamond Council (WDC), expressed the WDC's optimism that Central African Republic (CAR) will soon be able to resume the unrestricted export of rough diamonds, supported by the Kimberley Process Certification System, and help turn the CAR...Read More

CEDEX, a blockchain-based trading platform for diamonds, said that ahead of its launch its diamond exchange-traded fund (ETF), it had secured more than 6,000 diamonds, worth some $50 million. The diamonds will provide traders with a variety of investment options prior to the launch of the fund. Quoting a lack of transparency, liquidity and fungibility as the reasons why diamonds have not become a...Read More

Lucapa Diamond Company and the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho announced that yet another 50+ carat rough diamond - this time a 55-carat top color stone- had been recovered from its new 1.1 Mtpa Mothae kimberlite plant in Lesotho. The stone is the fifth +50 carat diamond recovered to date from the new Mothae mine, where commercial production commenced in January 2019 following the commission...Read More

RAPAPORT... The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent letters toeight companies selling lab-grown or simulated diamonds, warning that theirmarketing violates the government's recently issued guidelines. Some of the companies'advertising may be deceptive to consumers, the FTC noted in the letters. In some cases their marketing implied that a simulated diamond, such as cubic zirconia or la...Read More

Expanding the scope of the Kimberley Process (KP) to include issues related to human rights and labour relations, as is being advocated by the World Diamond Council (WDC), will help create conditions in which Sub-Saharan Africa's artisanal diamond miners can meet their economic potential, and so support the development of their countries' economies, says WDC executive director Marie-Chanta...Read More

RAPAPORT... The Central African Republic (CAR) is trying to entice large diamond-mining companies to set up operations in thecountry, as part of its effort to reform the sector and meetKimberley Process (KP) regulations. The government has already contacted both De Beers andAlrosa, President Faustin-Archange Touadera said in a speech to the Antwerp trade Monday. Allowing established companies...Read More

Aim-listed Botswana Diamonds has completed the intensification drilling programme on the Frischgewaagt and Hartbeesfontein farms, which form part of its Thorny River diamond dyke project, in South Africa.The intensification drilling programme comprised 33 holes and 1 282 m of drilling which, together with previous work, has resulted in a total drilled depth of 3 299 m in five areas on th...Read More

Turkish steel producers remained silent in the scrap market for a third day on Thursday April 4, making no purchases of deep-sea cargoes while continuing to look for political clarity, sources told Fastmarkets.Mills continued to await official confirmation of the results of Turkey's countrywide mayoral elections, which were held on March 31.The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has c...Read More

LONDON – The story of how two prospectors, down to their last nickels, discovered diamonds in Canada’s frozen north is the stuff of legend.Back in 1982, Chuck Fipke and Stewart Blusson laid low in a pup tent by day while their competitor De Beers hauled 45-gallon drums of rock samples to a nearby outpost for transport to South Africa. Using the long hours of summer sunlight north of th...Read More

Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) plans to ship its first cargo of the high-grade iron ore concentrate product from its Iron Bridge Magnetite Project in Western Australia by mid-2022.The project will be able to produce iron ore at a rate of 22 million wet metric tonnes (wmt) per year or 20 million dry metric tonnes (dmt) per year once it reaches full capacity within the 12 months to mid-2023, the miner...Read More

Physical iron ore prices were range-bound on Thursday April 4 after spikes earlier in the week, with China entering a long weekend from Friday to Sunday for the Tomb Sweeping Festival.MB 62% Fe Iron Ore Index: $92.90 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.18 per tonne.MB 62% Fe Pilbara Blend Fines Index: $92.02 per tonne cfr Qingdao, down by $0.18 per tonne.MB 62% Fe Iron Ore Index-Low Alumina: $95.53...Read More

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Diversified mining company Anglo American hopes to have a truck running on hydrogen in the next 12 months, Anglo American technical director Tony O’Neill said on Wednesday, when he spoke of foreseeing the company’s installed diesel fleet one day being replaced by an electrical alternative.  To test the departure from the use of carbon fuels...Read More

Seaborne coking coal prices were steady on Thursday April 4 ahead of a holiday in China.On the Global Coal trading platform, a May-laycan cargo of premium hard coking coal in the premium segment was offered at $205 per tonne fob Australia during the day, while bids were made at $195 per tonne fob. A day earlier, a similar cargo was traded at $198 per tonne fob Australia. Elsewhere, a...Read More

The official end of the winter heating season in China - the world's largest iron ore consumer - a few days ago has coincided with a pick-up in market interest in the price spreads between different grades of the steelmaking raw material.On Monday April 1, a total of 350 lots of the Singapore Exchange's (SGX) 65% Fe iron ore cfr China futures contract were cleared and traded. The following day, 2,...Read More